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Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the movie "Here" a technical experiment in deaging and new kind of cinematography different from the past. Robin Wright's vision of growing up as adults in the 1960's, the period John F. Kennedy was campaigning in 1956 and in 1960 in Wisconsin, with radio the main medium and life moving slowly. There is this image from a writer in Wisconsin about that time when John Kennedy turned up at a supermarket in suburbs of Wisconsin to talk to customers for his Wisconsin campaign, and with Robert Kennedy also in the store, Mrs Kennedy takes a microphone and talks to customers at the store about JFK's campaign.  A new spirit of social change was being felt in the air when Kennedy represented this not just for America but for the Free World across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. It is this optimism that America felt and reaches out for again. It is also a period of optimism in the US and the Free World, a spirit John Kennedy really captured. The FDR-Truman period laid behind the chapter of excesses of capitalism and Roosevelt's response, Truman set the Free World's response to the Soviets, Eisenhower period completed the Interstate Highway System but was stagnant in other respects. It is this Wisconsin campaign that put Kennedy on the map for the Democratic nomination in 1960 with a new feeling in the air about what America could really aspire to and aspire for. ...

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Typical of climate change events - this week's floods in Spain- a year worth of rain in a few hours and all of a sudden.

An area of low pressure that breaks away from the jet stream that should blow it away formed in the Gulf of Cadiz. In weather parlance it is called a cutoff low. When this moisture laden air hits the mountains it forms clouds that dump torrential rain on coastal areas.

The warmer the Mediterranean is more of it evaporates, this years it was warmest in record. The warming Arctic adds to this by weakening the jet stream that can blow this off, say scientists.

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Effects of the two storms in Florida and North Carolina reduced job growth in October. Overall the unemployment rate was steady at 4.1%. Job growth and the unemployment come from 2 different surveys one from households for the unemployment rate and one from employers by the Labor Department for job growth.  The hurricanes and weather events meant people were still being paid but could not get to jobs during the month of October, the estimate of this number was 512,000 in 2024. In 2016 and 2018 with hurricanes this number was about 250,000 in each year. 512,000 in 2024 is double the size from 8 years earlier in 2016, it shows that this could reach double this or 1 million jobs affected if another 4 years are lost pretending that climate change is "a scam" or that it was not serious, doing nothing and reversing direction. On average over 20 years the loss of jobs from hurricanes is about 69,000, excluding 2016 and 2018 it would be about 45,000. This shows that there are effects that are growing from climate change on jobs at an accelerated pace, another economic warning sign for the need for climate change action. ...

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Drugs affecting Montevideo capital of the small country of 3.3 million people in the Rio de la Plata estuary in southern Uruguay. Container traffic has increased by 62% since 2019 Le Monde reports, coupled with Bolivia becoming a new area for drugs, has disturbed the relative tranquillity of this region near Argentina that existed for most of the 20th century. The dire need for a comprehensive solution. Cali, Columbia is now the place for the Biodiversity Climate Change COP29, and this shows how the problem keeps shifting from country to country- that it is beyond the scope of one party, and requires an all party solution in the US, 100% bipartisan, as Mexico was also a place of relative tranquillity for most of the 20th century. The Biden Lankford legislation was a huge path making move with Republican Lankford and Biden-Harris together on one page on the issue. Harris has promised she will get this legislation to her desk again and sign it into law.    ...

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COP16 on Biodiversity in Cali, Colombia, in November 2024, is a source of pride for Colombians.

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Floods in the Valenica region are described to be "like a tsunami" and  so sudden that flood warnings came too late. This is typical of the climate change related floods in Germany, North Africa, Mexico, and other countries where the floods have hit all of a sudden, bringing torrents of rain within minutes.

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Greg Ip of the WSJ calls the US economy's growth "impressive," and "quality growth." This was always evident throughout the last 24 months. It was presented in terms of cost of living crisis at times but it was always evident that something remarkable has been achieved by president Biden and Fed chairman Jerome Powell, the US leading all the economies in the world by far. 

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In 2024 gender has receded into the background it is all about how to help ordinary Americans, workers and families, and children, and seniors. Harris is all about the Way Forward and the opportunity Economy, tackling the cost of living and jobs, higher wages.

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Puerto Ricans in the US react to the "island of garbage" comment made at the Madison Square Garden rally. 127,000 Puerto Ricans live in Philadelphia and 64,000 in the towns of Allentown and Reading in Pennsylvania. New York City has about 600,000, Rochester and Buffalo about 60,000 Puerto Ricans. Florida has about 600,000 people from Puerto Rico and 15% of Latinos in Orlando area are from the island.

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Of this $15.9 billion is for a writedown of assets that have less value now including for a production process called Intel 7, as the foundry business that makes chips for other companies shifts to advanced technologies. The foundry business had an operating loss of $5.8 billion and has the support of the Biden administration as it seeks to bring back manufacturing to the US in advanced chips made in Taiwan by TSMC. There is much debate inside Intel about how to structure the foundry business which makes product for other companies. Intel CEO Gelsinger is keeping the company together as Intel will need to invest in the foundry business for the long term goals of the US and Intel Corporation. The foundry business has the support of Amazon and 2 other large companies as customers. It is the national resolve of Biden-Harris to rebuild manufacturing for CHIPS and Intel is at the forefront no matter what short term focused Wall Street analysts say.  ...

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Of Amazon's third quarter profit of $15.3 billion profit $5.7 billion was from the retail delivery business, 60% of it or $9.2 billion was from its cloud services and AI business. The retail business held up with more efficient delivery and logistics growing at 9% for the quarter. 

Amazon had 1.55 million employees up 3%. It's investing capital expenses were $21.8 billion up 88% as it invests heavily in data centers to power AI and will soon launch low orbit earth satellites to provide internet services to areas off the grid.

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More evidence of climate change this time in Spain with eastern and southern parts of Spain, the Valencia and Catalonia regions getting about a year's worth of rain in 8-24 hours.

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  Rachel Louis Ensign of the WSJ describes one moment in the Madison Square Garden Trump rally. In it Lutnick who Ensign describes as embracing controversial crypto finance business, and EV's Musk, say they plan to  create a Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, also the name of a cryptocurrency. The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the central banks of China, India have warned of risks and dangers associated with Crypto currency which has no backing of the government. In one moment of the rally at Madison Square Garden as reported in the WSJ. Lutnick says- "How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted, $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget?”   “I think we could do at least $2 trillion,” Musk said.  Fitzgerald says "Yeah" A budget that the large part of includes spending for Social Security, Medicare, Defense, Education, and other departments of government. Howard Lunick is Donald Trump's head of Human Resources in 2024, for hiring people to run the government under his administration. In 1993 he was running the company Cantor Fitzgerald and taking his son to kindergarden when the bombings of the World Trade Center by terrorists killed 980 of the company's employees. Fitzgerald has contributed to Kamala Harris's campaign for US Senate in 2016, and calls himself a fiscal conservative and social liberal. In 2023 he was invited by Trump to help his campaign. Fitzgerald says the Democratic party left him with its immigration and other policies. This report by Rachel Louis Ensign in WSJ says Cantor Fitzgerald's company has embraced crypto, which larger companies have stayed away from. It says the WSJ has reported that a Hong Kong based owner of the stable coin tether used Cantor Fitzgerald to help oversee its $39 billion bond portfolio. Crypto finance is reported as playing a large part in 2024. Rachel Louis Ensign of the WSJ describes one moment in the Madison Square Garden Trump rally. In it Lutnick and Musk say they plan to  create a Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, which is also the name of a cryptocurrency. The problem with cryptocurrency is that the US Federal Reserve does not support it, China, India and the European Central Bank disapprove of it and it is banned in China even though some of the crypto companies have connections with China. In one moment of the rally at Madison Square Garden as reported in the WSJ. Lutnick says- "How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted, $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget?”   “I think we could do at least $2 trillion,” Musk said.  Fitzgerald says "Yeah" ...

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Shrinking cable systems business with cord-cutting in the US in 2024. Strategies for streaming services and news/entertainment business at Comcast.

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EV slowdown in the US in 2024. And GM surpassing Ford in EV's.

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Institute of Fiscal Studies, IFS, shows where the money is going in Labour's first Budget. See graphs of the household income over the 75 years under Conservative and Labour governments, which shows slower growth in household income over the next 5 years. Healthcsare and Education are growing at 4%. The growth of 6-10% is for local government spending, housing, communities and local government, work and pensions, Justice, HM Revenue. The slow rise in household incomes to 2030 is the result of trickle down economics which is sold vigorously by some groups as economic orthodoxy including the largest corporations paying little in taxes. This is true also of the US. FDR called it Tory policies and policies that say trickle down economics works when it doesn't. FDR said at DNC in 1932- "And we thought the Tories left in 1776." Today this is why UK household incomes show slight growth to 2030, and even this Labour Government is hesitant to boldly question this economic orthodoxy.  For Britain the debacle of Brexit turning some legitimate questions of immigration into isolation from economies of mainland Europe adds to the problem.     ...

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Compare this fine of $100,000 for an interview with Tories Rishi Sunak by GB News Program, a British broadcaster, days before the election by British Broadcasting Regulatory Authority Ofcom, with the unregulated and free for all ways of PACS throwing their weight around days before the US election. The US democratic framework owes much for its origins in the British parliamentary democracy and its institutions and concepts, yet in the framework for parties vying for support there is a glaring missing element of restraint and rules, regulatory principle so that anyone can run for office. Under the current system which is not a given and which was written by human beings and can be corrected most people are not keen on raising huge amounts of money are excluded from public service, a great loss to the nation.